Mid Summer

thirty seven,

It was a Thursday afternoon, when Jaemin leaves his last class of the day. Nothing feels better than being done with classes, in Jaemin's opinion. He had a decent amount of homework to do over the weekend, since on Fridays he only had one morning class. It was nothing he couldn't handle, so he's pretty happy when he's walking across campus this afternoon.

He expects to maybe run into Donghyuck, since the latter has his last class ending around this time, or maybe running into Jeno, since the elder always comes to pick him up. However, the very last thing that Jaemin expects is to get knocked to the ground (grass, thankfully) because of a student running into him.

Currently, the only thing Jaemin can see is blackness because he closed his eyes, but he groans at the weight on top of him. Obviously, as he's pieced together, the student had run into him and now they're both on the ground. Except Jaemin would gravely appreciate it if the other could get off of him.

When the other student doesn't, Jaemin gets lightly irritated and opens his eyes to tell the other off. When his eyes are open, he sees that it's a boy that has bumped into him. But the thing which makes Jaemin feel uncomfortable if the way he was staring at him. His eyes were boring into Jaemin's, and the latter watched the gears turn in his head. It was awfully creepy, but Jaemin didn't want to say anything like that in case it offended the other boy.

"Uh..." He ends up saying instead, internally smacking himself for sounding so dumb. "Could you... Get off me now?"

Realization seems to dawn on the boy on top of him, as he practically jumps off of Jaemin. He stands up himself, collecting what appears to be a sketchbook which has most probably slipped from his grasp when they fell. Jaemin also stands himself up, and when he's up, he can see that the other boy is quite shorter than he is. It's strikingly familiar, their height difference, but he doesn't think too much about it. After all, a lot of people were shorter than he was.

"Sorry about that," the smaller boy apologizes. Something about his accent makes Jaemin think he's a foreigner, but once again, he didn't want to assume. However, he did sound oddly enough like Chenle, who he knows is from China. Perhaps this boy was too? The smaller flashes a smile at Jaemin, and the latter sees what appears to be a snaggletooth in the left corner of his mouth. It rings a bell in his head, but once again, he ignores it. Jeno had a snaggletooth when he was younger anyways, it was probably just a memory of Jeno. But then the other boy speaks. "Didn't mean to bump into you Jaemin."

To say Jaemin would be shocked would be a understatement. He was shocked along with being creeped out. As far as he knows, he's never seen or met this boy a day in his life, and here he was, knowing his name and speaking it correctly. 

"Um, do I know you?" Is the first thing he asks, eyeing the boy up and down before settling on the fact that he's never seen him before.

However, instead of giving Jaemin a straightforward answer, the other boy smirks and then opens his mouth to recite something he remembers from four years ago.

"'Sorry, but I'm dating Jeno. Believe me, if I had a second heart, it'd go for you because you're the second most cutest and hottest thing I've ever seen'."

Jaemin's eyes widen, vividly remembering that conversation because he didn't think he'd ever say those words to anyone, but lo and behold, the hot art student from China came along in the ninth grade.

The words make a blush appear on Jaemin's cheeks, dark, embarrassed and heavily regretful. He doesn't know what he was thinking when he said those words, but he can't say he was wrong. Even now, four years later, Huang Renjun still looked like the second most cutest and hottest thing he's ever seen. Well maybe now it'd be fourth, since he now has Donghyuck and Mark added into the mix.

"Renjun," Jaemin sighs, smiling nonetheless. It was always nice to see an old face, especially one of his friend's.

Renjun and Jaemin were the closest of friends in the ninth grade, when the former had come to their school on an exchange. His partner was surprisingly Chenle, which is how Renjun was added into their little group. It was a sad time when he had to leave at the end of the year, but he knows that Chenle kept in contact with him. Jaemin however... Didn't. And it wasn't like they left on bad terms, it just ended with Renjun confessing to Jaemin, and the latter having to turn him down... The embarrassing way he did. It wasn't like there was any bad blood, Jeno, Renjun and Jaemin all knew what happened, there was simply just some awkwardness which prevented the two old friends from starting up a conversation.

"Na Jaemin," Renjun smiles, scanning the younger boy up and down before speaking again. "Nice seeing you."

"You too," Jaemin hums. "But what're you doing here?" As far as Jaemin knew, Renjun went back to finish high school in China, and chances were he was going to finish school in China.

"Korea," Renjun starts, walking forward knowing that Jaemin would follow him. And follow him Jaemin does. "Has better art programs."

Jaemin raises an eyebrow at that, not knowing that Korea had better art programs. He never looked into it anyways, art was never really his thing. 

The next time Jaemin looks forward, he sees Jeno, Mark and Donghyuck walking towards the direction he and Renjun were waking in.

"Hey Renjun," he says, eyes not leaving the trio. "I gotta go, but we should catch up maybe, yeah?"

The older boys smiles and nods his head, letting Jaemin know that he was interested.

"Definitely! You have my number."

Jaemin nods, smiling and having goodbye to Renjun before running up to the elder three he sees not too far away.

Donghyuck is the first one he envelopes in a back hug, and he was also the easiest because he was the shortest amongst the tree of them. But don't tell Donghyuck he said that, or he'd be asking for a death sentence.

Jaemin's arms wrap around Donghyuck's neck, head finding its way to hook over one of the elder's shoulders.

"Hey guys," he greets, smiling brightly as his eyes shine with happiness and comfort. Jeno can tell. Maybe Mark takes a bit longer to see it, but he still does.

"Hey Nana," Jeno and Donghyuck say at the same time, earning a giggle from the boy himself. Mark simply pecks his cheek, which Jaemin blushes lowly at. He's gotten somewhat used to Mark and his affection, however it was Donghyuck who always seemed to send everything spiralling nowadays.

"We were gonna pick you up," Jeno starts. "Thinking about heading out to eat."

Jaemin perks up at that, and he releases Donghyuck from his back hug and stands up straight. The four of them have formed a circle, and are soon discussing dinner plans and what to do after. It takes about eight minutes, but the four of them settle on freshening up a little and walking down to the noodle shop two blocks away. After that, they decide that they're going to crash at Jaemin and Mark's dorm, which the latter two roll their eyes at but don't protest against the idea.

So Jaemin grabs onto Mark's hand as the two of them head to their dorm to get ready, while Jeno and Donghyuck head to their own dorm.

For the sake of the evening, Jeno will push seeing Renjun and Jaemin to the back of his mind.

__________

so it's dinero peso yen lo quiero i want it idk why i thought it was dinero queso cheese lo quiero i want it, anyways—